Alone. Between lonely hearts
understanding misunderstood others
with attention, my password
the master key in my genes

Kicking I already did it
not yet capable of anything else
as a baby, as a grownup
no one should unlearn it

no one should claim it
when he feels hurt
by hurt people, wronged
by the world

of sham adults
Come, I'm coming, just swallow
your reproaches
for a kiss

At the bench, just before
we get there, he reaches
for the ground

and sits down
but he doesn't seem to know how
he doesn't seem to be well, I wait

A municipal man comes
to see and he calls for help, sirens
My companion is carefully laid down

A woman presses her arms
around me and holds me
caressing me

Others are watching
tirelessly his chest rises
after every push, another push

I'm still not allowed
to go to him, I'm waiting
it can't be right

that he stays down
that he is not on the bench
that he doesn't talk to me

Paying attention to as little
as possible, saving my energy
only vaguely watching at the edge
what is happening and imitating
what the others are doing

just behaving normally, as expected
I have been coming here for that long
and it also feels that familiar
when I go through the door
and see where I am

Not making mistakes
being silent and seeming to be
as wise as I actually am
but no longer on demand
only confirming or cautiously

saying hm with a nod
benevolent and waiting
for further explanation if
the other person dares
or likes to speak

You see yourself being
pushed to the margins
where the past piles up
and is pushed over the edge

Tangible, smell-able gasoline
becomes a hidden current
and the news also
no longer flows in fixed channels

Times are changing
more than you do, you no longer participate
in everything and you start to doubt
causes and consequences

Those who are duped are out of luck
Compensations are always pending
you have to make do with what you have
count your blessings and be happy

that younger generations know how
to find their way in the world
that you helped to lubricate, somewhere
in a dot on Earth

I don't want to fantasize
what-if, don't want to dream
about you, dreaming

that in the cell soup
protein strings intimately bind
themselves slightly differently
to a passing piece
     of chaos at neap tide

to you touchable there -
the social partitions
not barriers
but a membrane

You're not that close
When I whisper
you don't hear me
and I can't feel you

even if I were to scream
it is in a world where
you are not

Unbearably itching
are the days of waiting
for the wound to heal

Deliriously thin I dream
of precisely that one person
to be happy with

My reserves are running out
When will the wind turn?
It isn't bringing any rain

Will my patience come to an end
or will someone come instead
to stand still with me?

Is the waiting unlearning me
much too late the waiting
and shall I get extra time

to live?

Puss plays puma and we
imitate the adults, lug
dress-up trunks and a bag
(stored for later)

to the bushes, for the party
with lots of ditchbeer and sand
pastries, carrots, lemonade
and old-fashioned fun

uncle Francis flirts with the girls
the baker laughs at his jokes
mama is the boss at the bar and
the neighbours comment

After three rounds it's really bedtime
for the little ones: just wait
until you're grown up, then you may
party as often as you like

In the bend of the brook

my mind sinks away
between sun spots of gliding
water and suspended shades

of green. Nothing is floating
against the current. Under
the water level, I feel

space for secrets
shelters of what
will be the future, maybe

My friends light candles
and will talk on the way back
about the boys on the benches

but I prefer to sit quietly
under the sacred oak trees
in the bend of the brook

The hearth protects
the fire, and me against the fire
the house protects
against the fire from outside

the men and the boys
who flare up everywhere
in the flanks of the houses
they want to come inside

rage and beat to death
and then, with dry eyes
extinguish in ashes and impotence
that is the danger

to my inside world
of kitchen and bed
where I veil
my dull days

Maybe
it was a dream, fairy-tale
real for him

when he came in and saw me
lying on the bed
without waking up

Maybe
he first looked for a while
until it, all of a sudden, happened by itself

and was done quickly
I screamed
and he fled confusedly

Maybe
he wanted to stay, satisfied, to continue
enjoying my sleeping beauty

A voice asked where we were
I walked out, through the garden
and overlooked the street

Talking to men
who I don't know
singing along with the music

on which I dance in the eyes
that follow me
like shadows

wishing to be desired
without being in danger
dressed for it, that too

is who I am, free
to the extent it is permitted
by the hell

of other people's eyes
that love my body
and hate me for it

but that's not me
I am anything
but what they think

She has got me, she will
lock me up with snakes
or spiders or skin me
alive, roast me, suck me out
or bewitch me, I'm lost

Why did I venture myself
in the tree, wriggle me
through the split
curious, perhaps
bewitched already

What was I looking for?
To learn to know myself
an underground me
entangled in the roots
in this wild woman's den?

I want to get out
Yes go
obedient soul, always clean
the exit is easy to find
just take a look in the mirror!

I see weapons in my hands
I see my face, it is hard
I climb out of my scale
as heavy as she
as light as she

On the edge, I'm dripping out
from my jumps in men

their nice words
sex and impatience

Wishing to give each other everything but
not knowing how subsequently

to lead a life of our own
Thinking about that for so long

that it is a problem
insoluble for logic

from which it originated
and elusive

for my unrest that fears
to miss opportunities

and is distracted
by the laughing and dancing

of the passing people who
did not pay attention to me
did not pay attention to mé

on the edge, dripping
from unappreciated beauty

on the edge, dripping
from unappreciated desire

He is in the hallway. Shall I
touch him, let my fingers run

through his hair, play with his shirt
tickle his body, shall I

arouse him and give the finest?
Cheerfully I say good morning, walk on

close my door, my eyes, him
in my arms on the edge

of my bed, to feel
what I would do if he ever

should take the step to unfasten
hooks with me and

School and home, everything
on this side of the river
discussed with friends

On the other bank
only sheep
no view

of gleaming roofs
a sweet old fairy
doing the laundry

or a boy
taking a dive
nothing special, but

still, tingles inside
which make me paddle and
for a minute, float, through waves

of excitement in my body
propelled by the chance
of overwhelming happiness

He sets out two cups, puts water
on the fire to which I warm myself
says sweet words and says
that I don't have to worry

can safely go to sleep and certainly
must not hide between walls
of fear, because because
we have friends

all we know is already there for a long time
all we give is not ours
but received, because we are there
for each other, and he embraces me

silently in front of the window
I surrender in his scent
hand in hand
we watch the stars

hand in hand
they proceed over the sky
on the other side of the river
smoke is circling

peace

The idea pushes me to later
to looking back on my life
since the answer

I am going to give now
to his question, his second
proposal: he wants a child

He sits on my stomach
looking so seductive and sweet
that I wish to

keep it as it is
with the two of us and the pill
better I don't say anything

pull him over to me
kiss his eyes shut
and attack

All beginnings are difficult, but
shall his heart grow with mine
and will not-matching sensitivities

be given a warm place anyway?
Can it be big like an elephant?

It already is, trumpets one
yeah ha ha ha, stamp the others
grandma Phant blows my hair in a mess

don't hold on to your questions
she says, better come with us

She trunks me between her ears
chatting about phants and people
with their peculiarities

we reach a wide field
of waving colours

The children phants start tasting them
crushing more flowers than they pick
but with love, new ones grow

you see, grandma Phant says
it's easy

if you give space to the sun

It is too much in one day:
gown, hair and pearl necklace
the guests

throwing white seeds
in the garden of vows
and we

wading through too much
too much to be able to forget it
too much to be able to remember it

too symbolic to be real
too real to believe in it
too large to not believe it

too marvellous to be able to make it come true
too true to ignore it
too unique to get up with it

so we do it over again every day
sitting down together for a while
in the garden of vows

In the morning, barefoot
over dewy wet jetty planks
to the moss-green cobblestone shore

fishing birds
wind between my legs
no man to see

take a bag of food
from the box, carefully
close the cover again

the hatch to stone, steel and waste
the motorized world
full of problems

Only the two of us
in the little boatshelterhouse
a holiday paradise time long

Just as the wind, sometimes
drawing my belly
in the fabric of my dress
I am reading your soul
with the breath of my soul

my passion discovers
yours, who you are
and the boy you were

I read your desires
and your love for me
from the flowing glow

over your beating body
in the fragrantly brewing bed
of autumn leaves in which
you stretch out, inside out
read by me

Together in the garden in the evening
done what was to be done
and said what was to be said

we wish nothing more

being connected
with the strange
the leaves, the flowers

and the blackbird not tired yet

flailing around like butterflies
we drink the nectar
and no longer have words

for who we are

I can hardly retell it
but something must have changed
we put on skin again

and felt blood flow

He is sweet, but a man
In order to protect me
he loses

himself in impotence
acting tall
doesn't want to be consolable

on his haunches in the corner
hesitates to change
and ponders about a miracle

from himself, hungrily
the fire beats out of his heart
searching for fuel and glory

seeking balance and afraid
to find it in the ashes
of his desires

Don't come closer, don't
talk about all kinds of things
I love you

If you agree, please
let my hands speak
I love you

Questions are just thoughts
your body does know better
I love you

You can't prove love
though there is proof enough
I love you

My love is always there

but not always
available, yet
then there is yours

One day melancholy came
to live in me
you are lonely

she said
you see the people
passing

and you think
they live
with hands and feet

you miss that
without knowing
your longing

maybe for the atmospheres
of the past
the different springs

when the days were new
you were immortal
and the world was yours

Love sings
of bravery eternally young
men wanting to be friend and foe
joy and sorrow

love sings
of beauty and heroes
born from their own lap


A hearts sings
everywhere and always the same
a sun song, a rainsong
the song of desire

a heart sings
if necessary of great pains
to extinguish them in its blood


Life sings
high and low in choruses
that love to charm themselves
with their own harmony

life sings
I soften my voice
to hear you

I'm an open book, sentence by sentence
lifelong, but who is reading it?
I have a husband or had one
I don't know, but he disappeared

I've been good to him
after all, I miss him most of all
what treasure came in his way
so dazzling that he forgot me?

It's empty here, if only I had someone
suitors aspiring to my hand
the winner gets except me
this house and the staff with it

     The sisters take good care
     as long as you play solitaire
     and rud rud ruddle
     rides the king through the puddle

     walking the dogs
     the girls on clogs
     and straight straight straight
     rides the king through the gate

     and lurch lurch lurch
     rides the king through the church
     now one two three
     I don't know anymore

Everything goes on
my life as well
it is not collapsing
but the missing

The wound that bleeds in me
from what could have been
that hot blood
that missing

You knew me
the way I want to be known
so double
is my missing

Your beauty
I'll have to recognize it
in other wonders
of people

in the missing
of your friendship
our touchably existing
together, that missing

will remain

I know the taste of rain
and how bitter herbs cut
in my tongue – everything edible
tasted and destructively processed
into a garden of memories

with paths of love to beds
of friendship and borders of vice
stakes of anger, ponds of sadness
and a smelly compost heap
of failures and wilted ideals

it sounds more orderly than the maze
it is, the web in which I got lost
of which the threads have become thin
and matte, breaking easily
in the merciless sun

that has evaporated
the glittering drops of dew
of the sky-blue illusions from my youth
and everyone calls it wisdom
that comes with age

to detach people
from their desires and last
physical discomforts
but I discovered
it's a secret